Freeze a base of ice cream, butter, sugar and spices, then combine with rum and boiling water when you're ready to serve our Hot Buttered Rum. You can freeze the base for up to three months -- almost long enough to last through a Midwest winter!

This isn’t a watery cocoa for the kids on movie night. It’s a fully adult dessert that you just happen to sip from a cup. A dash of cayenne pepper makes the drink extra-warming without being overtly spicy.

While traveling in Israel, Minnesota blogger Molly Yeh discovered hawaij, a spice blend often sprinkled in coffee. In this recipe from her book Molly on the Range[23] ($32.50, Rodale), she adds hawaij to her coconut-based hot chocolate for extra flavor.

If you like, garnish cups of chef Gerard Craft's Italian mulled wine with thin orange slices or pretty curls of orange peel. This recipe multiplies easily and can be made ahead and reheated before serving.

Warm up cold evenings in a flash when you serve these drinks hot from your microwave. Spiced Apple-Cranberry Cider combines cranberry-juice cocktail with apple cider or apple juice, cloves and cinnamon. Garnish with a skewer of cranberries, if you like.

Udo Heinz from the Baum Wine Group in Bensenville, Illinois, says he fixes this German/Austrian specialty in the traditional Nuremberg way: hot, a bit sweet and spiced. We created both an adult and a nonalcoholic "Kinder" (kids') version using directions from Udo.